“Invariant” Parashat Behar – Bechukotai 5786 |
In the Portion of Behar, the Torah presents what appears to be a straightforward legal framework governing economic collapse and recovery: A man loses everything. He is forced to sell his land. If things get worse, he sells himself into slavery. The Torah responds with a carefully designed system of limits, protections, and release valves. A maximum of six years of slavery. Jubilee (Yovel). Dignity clauses. It reads like a well-constructed regulatory structure, something that could almost be diagrammed as a flowchart with inputs, constraints, and outputs. But then, in the middle of this legal code, something unusual happens.
Up until this point, everything is written in the singular[1]. The Torah speaks about one individual who becomes impoverished[2], one individual who is sold, one individual whose treatment is regulated. The language is focused, concrete, and case-based. Then suddenly, without warning, the Torah shifts into the plural. Instead of speaking about him, it speaks about them [Vayikra 25:42]: “Because (Ki) they are My servants and therefore they shall not be sold as a slave is sold”. Instead of one particular case, the Torah invokes a collective identity. This is not a stylistic flourish. It is a conceptual shift and it begs a question: If the Torah says that they shall not be sold as a slave is sold, why does it permit servitude at all?
The standard answer is that the Torah does not abolish slavery but, rather, regulates and humanizes it. It takes an ancient institution without which economies could not survive, and softens it, imposing limits, dignity, and eventual release. That answer is correct as far as it goes. But it assumes that the verse is explanatory. It assumes a smooth logical flow in which the second clause simply justifies the first.
That assumption deserves to be challenged. Above we translated the Hebrew word “Ki” as “Because”. The Talmud in Tractate Rosh Hashanah [3a] teaches that this connective word actually has four meanings. It can mean........